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Tag: New York sucks

  • Why Aidan’s Visceral Reaction to Not Wanting to Go Into Carrie’s Apartment Ever Again Is Emblematic of New York-Specific PTSD

    Why Aidan’s Visceral Reaction to Not Wanting to Go Into Carrie’s Apartment Ever Again Is Emblematic of New York-Specific PTSD

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    With the latest episode of And Just Like That…, the one everyone is raving about/saying it’s marked a shift for the better in the series, director Ry Russo-Young opens on a scene of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) in bed wearing a shirt that says, “The Most New York You Can Get.” It’s a fitting way to kick off “February 14th,” as the most New York you can actually get is being incapable of walking down certain streets or going into certain places. Not because it’s too expensive, but because, in another iteration of your life, you were emotionally wounded there. Irrevocably.

    They say you can be traumatized anywhere, but, in truth, there’s no more affecting place for experiencing trauma than one, New York City. The “greatest” city in the world isn’t so great when every street corner, every establishment and, yes, every apartment is a potential landmine for unwanted memories bubbling to the surface and causing the long-buried pain to feel oh so fresh. The usual staunch defenders of the city might say that there’s nowhere else on Earth that can give you such “profound” experiences (most of which include, at some point, vomiting on the subway). That nowhere else will “give you the chance” to feel so much…until you ultimately feel nothing at all. Numbness as a defense mechanism. Repackaged as New Yorkers being “experts at minding their own business.” When, the fact is, they’ve been trained to turn off any reaction whatsoever in the name of self-protection. And perhaps being smug about what Carrie once phrased as: “The fact is [New Yorkers have] pretty much done and seen it all. It takes quite a bit to shock us.”

    The same goes for Sex and the City-turned-And Just Like That… viewers, who have seen it all when it comes to Carrie’s relationship pattern. Which goes: Big, Aidan, Big, Aidan, Big…and now Aidan again. What with his character being the last man standing after “John” died (and, to an extent, Chris Noth…when his career died). The stale story maneuver to pivot in this direction yet again presumes that Aidan doesn’t have the self-respect to cut Carrie loose for good—the way Carrie didn’t in order to do the same to Big.

    Such lack of self-respect is something that’s actually not that far-fetched when considering how long people choose to stay in New York after “making a life” there—the ultimate euphemism for, “Well, I found a job and enough people to get drunk with so why rock the boat and leave?” Except that Aidan actually did, only to be pulled back in by the woman who once asked the question that proves why New Yorkers are the most annoying breed on the planet: “I’m always surprised when anyone leaves New York. I mean where do they go?” Probably to a place with fewer triggers. 

    And yet, Carrie is only too down to be the triggerer when she invokes the spirit that is Aidan by reaching out to him via email. Which is ironic for the person who once insisted (in yet another episode when her romance with him was about to be rekindled), “I don’t believe in email. I’m an old-fashioned gal. I prefer calling and hanging up.” In 2023, Carrie is slightly less puerile, but not by much…she still abruptly closes her computer like a scared little girl when she sees that there’s a new message from him in her inbox. This, of course, harkening back to the “Baby, Talk Is Cheap” episode where she does cave in to signing up for an email address (already late to the game in 2001) and AIM account (again, 2001). Her one “Buddy” on that messaging apparatus being “AidanNYC” (this lack of originality certainly suits Carrie’s writing style). And when his screen name appears online, she has a pre-OK Boomer moment when she freaks out and asks, “Oh my God, he’s online! Can he see me?” Miranda, not bothering to explain to her the finer points of how the internet works, assures her that, no, he cannot see her. At least not literally. 

    Galvanized, she gets up and heads over to his apartment, having initially told Miranda in an unsent email, “Aidan says he’s not interested, but he seems interested.” This being Rapist Logic 101. Which is further emphasized by her phone conversation with Miranda during which she says, “His words said no, but his kiss said yes” and “I know he still feels it.” Apparently, they both still do decades later. Even if Carrie should be off-put by how Aidan is dressed like Elvis trying to make Army attire fashionable. 

    After making their rendezvous for “February 14th,” as though pretending each has no idea what that means, another callback to previous episodes of SATC occurs when Carrie starts to think she’s being stood up. Maybe Aidan is just a scorpion who lured her into his stinging trap of retribution for all the emotional torment she caused him (which is really what he should have done). Channeling “The Agony and the ‘Ex’-tasy” episode where she waits interminably at Il Cantinori for people to show up to the birthday dinner she didn’t want to have, Carrie starts to feel exposed when she sees Aidan is already ten minutes late (this also echoing the season two episode where Samantha gets stood up at a restaurant by a guy who “we’d” his way all the way home). But no, turns out there was a mixup (Il Cantinori/El Cantinoro-style) and he’s simply at the restaurant next door. To be sure, the symbolism of these two still not being in the same place bears noting. Even if there’s the emphasis that they’re now both “on the same page.” 

    Though they never were before, least of all in season four, when Carrie, again, practically begged him to ignore his better judgment and be with her. “You broke my heart!” he finally screams after she makes the selfish case for them getting back together in “Baby, Talk Is Cheap.” Perhaps aware of the power she holds over him when, minutes later, he gives in and runs to her apartment (after she childishly runs away from his because he rightly berated her) to bone, Carrie can make the connection that she is the Big in his life. The one great love he can’t say no to…no matter how poorly she treats him. And there’s something to be said for the parallel to how NYC residents also view New York. No matter how toxic, unhealthy or straight-up miserable it is, its status as a “great love” means it can do no wrong, regardless of the repeated joy it seems to get from burning those who “love” it so much. If by “love” what is meant is delighting in masochism and calling it “making a sacrifice for something wonderful.” 

    After their sexual reunion in “Baby, Talk Is Cheap,” Aidan asks Carrie, “You wanna do this to make up for the past? Relieve your conscience?” She insists that no, the reason she wants to get back together is, “I still love you.” He pretends he needs to think about it, but the next morning, he’s outside her window, calling out, “Okay let’s give it a shot.” “You wanna come up?” she replies. Even then, he avoided it, insisting he has to take Pete for a walk. Perhaps knowing, in some way, that Carrie’s “single girl” apartment was going to be his bane. And that’s what it still ultimately is. For Carrie will always see herself that way: someone who can just flit about like the twenty-something NY “it girl” she can’t shake from her self-perception. 

    Maybe that’s why she doesn’t pre-fathom how jarring it will be for Aidan to see the apartment again, taking him there after dinner. Not realizing where they are until he gets out of the cab, his face falls as he remarks, “When you said go back to your place, I just thought you had a different place… At the restaurant, I just thought, ‘How great. This feels really great. We’re back where we started.’ But this is where we ended. With the fuckin’ wall I couldn’t break through and those floors, remember, that I redid? It’s all bad. And it’s just, it’s all in there.”

    Carrie soothes, “Okay yes, it’s the same place, but we’re not in the same place.” Constantly assuring him that she’s different (therefore, “it’s” different) and better every time they’re about to start things up anew, Aidan can’t quite grasp the veracity of that declaration when she’s continued to live in the same apartment. So unaffected by all the shit that went down there. He finally says, “I can’t go in there again with all that.” Aidan’s trauma response is the culmination of the number New York (and those who flock there) can do to a person. So much that said person can’t even seem to grasp the way they feed on the psychological deterioration it causes after a while. Which is why Aidan then whips around and announces, “Hey, fuck it. This is New York. They have hotels, right?” Aidan’s sudden desire to bang in hotels in lieu of ever going back into that trauma epicenter called Carrie’s apartment also provides an interesting full-circle moment in that Carrie had her affair with Big in hotels throughout Manhattan during season three (side note: another callback to the original series is when Carrie uses the cheesy “Great Sexpectations” pun that served as the title of SATC’s second episode of season six). 

    Alas, like those who move back to New York after leaving it, Aidan ignores all the reasons he left (both the city and the relationship) so that he can learn the hard way, yet again, that Carrie, the so-called embodiment of the city (see: “The Most New York You Can Get”), will only cause more pain. For what could possibly go wrong if he refuses to set foot in the apartment she would never abandon? This made peak evident in season four’s “Ring A Ding Ding,” when Carrie is faced with the very real possibility of losing her underpriced abode as she, funnily enough, is forced to buy it back from Aidan after their relationship ends, again. 

    Yet what Carrie is most upset about isn’t Aidan, but the apartment. Pacing the “living room,” she gives the voiceover, “As I thought about leaving the apartment I had lived in for the past decade, I realized how much I would miss it. Through everything, it had always been there for me.” So yes, Carrie 1) loves her apartment too much to ever leave and 2) has the type of Stockholm Syndrome that would never allow her to see that the apartment is the source of the trauma she refers to with “through everything.” There’s a reason Aidan is smart enough to believe that no amount of sage could get rid of the energy in that place, and that Carrie’s apartment is nothing but “bad juju.” Of course, so is New York itself, with all the places one is initially so fond of while they’re at an emotional crest falling prey to the invariable emotional dip once such places become tied to pain.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Lukas Matsson Has His Lexi Featherston Moment

    Lukas Matsson Has His Lexi Featherston Moment

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    There must be something about being inside a rich person’s apartment overlooking the New York skyline that makes a party guest have a rather overt epiphany: New York kinda sucks. More to the point, it’s not actually that special. Naturally, those loyalists who are obsessed with NYC and defending its “honor” no matter how much it devolves into a moated island for the uber-affluent or the uber-deranged (usually those two qualities go hand in hand) will say that the likes of Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) and Lexi Featherston (Kristen Johnston) are merely “haters” because they’re not being treated like the “relevant” beings they see themselves as. Of course, Matsson is endlessly relevant (“fudged” GoJo numbers or not). As far as anyone (apart from the Roys) is concerned, he’s a rich white man doin’ big thangs—and should be treated as such.

    Nonetheless, Lukas is feeling generally bored and resentful from the outset of showing up to Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Tom’s (Matthew Macfadyen) triplex in Lower Manhattan, where they’re hosting an election kickoff “tailgate party” (hence, the name of the episode being just that). It’s Shiv, playing the double agent throughout the ongoing and much talked about “deal” (one in which GoJo will absorb Waystar Royco), who urges Lukas to show up. Because not only will it throw a wrench into Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman’s (Kieran Culkin) plans to talk shit about him and GoJo, but it will also give Lukas a window of opportunity to shine bright like a diamond in front of the “most powerful people in America.” To Lukas’ surprise, it really is that easy to make an impact. More specifically, as he notes to Shiv in the coat room, “You know, I thought these people would be very complicated, but it’s…they’re not. It’s basically just, like, money and gossip” (ergo, Gossip Girl remaining the pinnacle of rich people life). And maybe that’s part of when the disenchantment with New York starts to sink in for Lukas. Sure, he’s been there many times and witnessed “the scene,” but never until this moment did it seem so clear to him how utterly lacking the innerworkings behind the veneer are. Like Dorothy and co. witnessing the Wizard of Oz being operated by nothing more than a little man behind a curtain, Lukas sees something far more disillusioning in these “movers and shakers.”

    Shiv confirms, “Oh yeah, no. That’s all it is.” Money and gossip. Synonyms for wheeling and dealing as a “key player” in New York. And being a key player, of course, automatically means you have to be rich. As the phrase that triggers so many people goes, “You have to pay to play.” No money, no skin in the game. And it is, as most are aware by now, a very rigged one. Matsson has been all too happy to be part of that ruse, particularly since he’s been putting one on himself in order to come across as “big enough” to buy out Waystar. Perhaps he was hoping that New York, for all its prestige and having a “solid reputation” as an epicenter of finance and “glamor,” would have more to it going on behind the scenes than merely more of the same.

    Kendall, committed as much to New York being the “end all, be all” as he is to his father’s company embodying that as well, insists that there is. And that Lukas is the inferior impostor who can’t hack it. In short, he’s no Anna Delvey when it comes to navigating New York as an impostor (as Kendall remarks to Shiv, “I fuckin’ knew he was a bullshitter. I’m tellin’ you…new money. You gotta hold those fresh bills to the light”). And yet, he actually does seem to know how to navigate. For he’s comfortable and confident enough in his own skin to “dare” to speak ill of the “greatest city in the world.” And amongst the “most powerful” people who run it, therefore all of America. Thus, we’re met with Lukas Matsson’s “Lexi Featherston moment” around forty-eight minutes into the episode. When he’s finally had enough of this blasé, bullshit party and wants to stir things up by asking, “So who’s, uh, who’s going out tonight in this shitty fucking town? Anyone? I gotta say, it’s pretty depressing from up here. You can really see how Second World it is.”

    For those who don’t remember Lexi’s own anti-New York monologue from season six of Sex and the City, it bubbled to the surface after being at her wit’s end with the banality of everyone and everything at the so-called party. Thus, Lexi snaps after being told she can’t smoke inside near the window, “Fuckin’ geriatrics… When did everybody stop smoking? When did everybody pair off? This used to be the most exciting city in the world and now it’s nothing but smoking near a fuckin’ open window. New York is over. O-V-E-R. Over. No one’s fun anymore! What ever happened to fun? God, I’m so bored I could die.” And then she does, tripping over her own stiletto heel and falling out the window. Previously, when Carrie encounters her in the bathroom doing coke and tells Lexi she only came in to get away from the party, Lexi replies knowingly, “Oh Euro-intellectuals. I don’t know why I pulled strings to get an invite to this piece of shit party.” Funnily enough, Lexi would probably view Lukas as one of the “Euro-intellectuals” she finds so dull merely because he happens to be from Europe. But at least his “right-hand man,” Oskar Gudjohnsen (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), is “moon-beamed on edibles” according to Lukas. Which makes things slightly more amusing for him (like having a court jester or something) as he “mingles” among the “glitterati” of the political and business worlds.

    Even so, just as Lexi did, Lukas finds himself utterly unimpressed by the goings-on at this “event.” Which, to him, feels like a sad attempt on these people’s part at pretending they’re living it up in some “fabulous” town with a lifestyle that couldn’t possibly be had anywhere else. Yet if it’s so fabulous, why does it bum him out so much as he stares out the window? Just as Lexi sort of did as she lit her cigarette and then turned her back to the city to give the “revelers” a harrowing recap on the state of affairs in NYC. A merciless “summing up” tailored to those who are still delusional about its “untouchable clout.”

    Kendall being one such person as he replies to Lukas calling it a shitty town with, “I don’t know, [it’s a] pretty happening town, famously.” “Really? Is it though?” “Yeah.” Lukas reminds Kendall of his quaint American perspective by saying, “Compared to Singapore, Seoul…it’s like Legoland.” Kendall insists, “You know we still run shit though?” Lukas ripostes, “Hmm, like as in…only in New York?” Kendall confirms, “Yeah.” Lukas titters, “Right. Okay. Well, uh, nothing happens in New York that doesn’t happen everywhere.” A fairly obvious statement, but one that actually needs to be said to those living in the self-deceiving bubble of “nothing else being like New York.”

    Starting to get offended as every NYC diehard does when a nerve is touched about “their” city, Kendall demeans in return to that comment, “You should get that written on a cup. Right? Shouldn’t he get that written on a cup? Like that would look so cool. You could sell that in a head shop in Rotterdam. Could be a good business for you.” Unfortunately, there’s still not much business in trying to “pull back the curtain” on New York blowing chunks, as it were. And even those who are “aware” of it still claim there’s nowhere else they’d rather be (especially if their choice is limited to staying in the U.S.).

    Including Carrie Bradshaw, as she claims to her “partner,” Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov), “I have a life here.” This being in response to his desire for them to move to Paris together. He answers, “Yes, but what do you want to come home to? What do you want your life to be?” These questions inferring that her continuing in the same way as she always has for the sake of “being loyal” to New York will only lead her down a path of despair and loneliness (something And Just Like That… ultimately confirms). And it’s for this reason that Lexi’s timing to appear as a cautionary tale plummeting to her death prompts Carrie to take her own plunge—by leaving New York. Even if New York is her “boyfriend,” as she called it in the first episode of season five, “Anchors Away,” wherein she tells us in a voiceover that she “can’t have nobody talking shit about [her] boyfriend” (this after a sailor named Louis [Daniel Sunjata] does exactly that). Unfortunately for Carrie and those committed to New York like a mental institution, this is what both Lexi and Lukas “deign” to do in their honest assessment of a city that “never sleeps.” Which is perhaps part of why it has the propensity to always disappoint.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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